Bear hunt off to a slow start

When temps hit the 60s like they did Monday, a bear — already fattened up and thickly furred — just feels like drowsing out in its den. At least that’s how state wildlife officials explained why hunters took only 125 bears, compared with 257 last year on what’s usually the most popular day of the weeklong “harvest.”

“These guys [hunters] are going to do OK today, but it’s not ideal,” Dave Chanda, director of the Division of Fish and Wildlife, said of the hunt’s total so far. “Ideal [weather] is more like in the 30s, a little snow on the ground. This is more beach blanket weather.”

Still Chanda said interest in the hunt is similar to previous years. Hunters have so far secured about 8,000 permits, compared to 9,200 at the end of last year’s season.

And, he said, it remains a critical part of the state bear management plan to reduce the numbers of bears to one in every three square miles — a level that would minimize bear-human encounters. Bears in the Bearfort Mountain area of West Milford and the Kittatinny Ridge area of Sussex County number about nine times higher.

“We’re looking to find that happy medium, where black bear are always going to remain a viable part of New Jersey’s landscape [and] it’s a game animal that sportsmen can enjoy hunting,” Chanda said. “But you want to have populations that minimize any kind of conflict.”

As they have in past years, animal-rights activists protested at the Wildlife Management Area in Fredon, one of several bear checking stations. Having exhausted legal avenues, they are now fighting against a state-allowed hunting practice of baiting bears with food that they say conditions bears to associate people with food.

Meanwhile, hunter John Breece, 31, of Fredon, checked in a 463-pound bear he’d shot after what he described as a tense, 15-minute encounter.

He had gone out with a large group in Long Valley, in Morris County. His uncle spotted the male bear and egged Breece on: “He said, ‘Listen, there is a huge bear in this thicket. Do you think you’re man enough to stalk it?’ ” Breece said. “I’m like ‘ah, what the heck.’ ”

As he stalked the bear, Breece’s heart was “probably pounding louder than [the bear’s] roar.” He then carefully aimed his 20-gauge shotgun and fired a fatal blow to the bear’s head after it peeked through an opening in the woods.

“He made a mistake,” Breece said. And now, the bear’s off to a butcher and taxidermist — “It’s gonna feed my family, then it’s gonna make a rug. It’s one less bear that could be a nuisance,” he said.

Authorities reported no injuries or incidents during the day except for an arrest: Bill Crain, a psychology professor at the City College of New York, was arrested for the third year in a row for leaving the area protesters had agreed to remain in, said Larry Ragonese, DEP spokesman. Crain, 69, walked along a road and was detained as a disorderly person. Handcuffed, he declared “It’s time for our society to become more enlightened.”

After two consecutive prior hunts, North Jersey’s bear population has dropped from 3,400 to 2,800 and sightings, complaints and encounters also are down, according to Chanda’s wildlife division, part of the Department of Environmental Protection.

“The first year of the hunt two years ago, we basically stabilized the population. Last year we saw the population change. If we can have similar harvest results as last year, we’re going to move the needle a little bit further down,” Chanda said.

Activists, meanwhile, are backing a bill proposed Thursday by State Sen. Raymond Lesniak, D-Union, that would ban baiting and require residents in communities that are core bear habitat like the northern Highlands to use bear-resistant trash containers.

Chanda did not offer an opinion on baiting, noting his division would remove it from regulations if the Legislature banned it. But he agreed trash management “could be better,” adding the law now is “flawed” and nearly impossible to enforce.

Shortly after noon, a Stillwater Township family checked in a bear about 1½ years old and weighing 123.5 pounds. Stanley Zeveney said he’d shot the bear in Sparta and plans to make steak and burgers. He had used bait and defended the practice: “You can see a bear closer; you can evaluate what you’re shooting.”

An activist who saw the couple had brought along their young boys yelled over: “Teaching babies to kill babies, you immoral cretins.”

Asked how he felt about the activists, Zeveney said, “That’s their right, just like my right to hunt.”